


statuesque

by mvrcredi



Series: cap-iron bingo fills [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Curse Breaking, Curses, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Stony Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 12:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mvrcredi/pseuds/mvrcredi
Summary: Something about the statues in the Stark mansion garden made Tony uneasy.





	statuesque

**Author's Note:**

> fill for my 'free space' bingo square.

Something about the statues in the mansion garden made Tony uneasy.

It wasn’t often that he snuck out in the late, late evening to sit with the peaceful shrubs and marble figures, but it was frequent enough he noticed the small changes in the statues every once in a while, when returning.

When he was younger, he played it up to be his imagination. Nighttime was scary, after all. It was quiet, dark. A mere rustling of leaves from a breeze blowing through was enough to make Tony jump. He still spoke with the statues, however. Sometimes, it felt like they were the only ones who would listen.

As he grew, he sought out the statues’ company more and more. Tony no longer became paranoid from wind, nor did he any longer notice the slight movements of the sculptures. Except for one—the handsome marble carving sitting front and centre set a disquieted feeling in Tony’s stomach. It was unbelievably real, as if someone was trapped in the stone. He feared it might be true.

When his parents passed, and the manor became his alone, it was rare that he spent time in the gardens. So little that an overgrowth had begun to show. Tony couldn’t find it in him to care. What would a group of lifeless, insentient beings care? Pepper nagged him about maintaining the property, as it was beautiful, yet he brushed her off every time. Those statues held many of his secrets, so be it if they cracked and crumbled.

Then there was a night that Tony would never forget.

He was drinking, again, out on his balcony. The lights of the house were shut off, the only source being the pale gleam of the full moon. He looked out on to the garden, noticing something that made his stomach drop.

The sculpture that normally sat in the centre of the garden was not on its pedestal. But there were not bits or broken pieces, indicating it having been destroyed. There was no debris. Almost as if the statue had gotten up and left.

He nearly tripped as he flew down the stairs to investigate further. There was no sign of the statue, not even up close. After thorough searching, he eventually slumps in defeat onto one of the nearby benches where he had occupied the majority of his time as a child at.

It’s about an hour later, Tony guesses, when he hears loud, clunky footsteps. He sits up immediately, on high alert. Those were not naturally occurring sounds.

The footsteps come to an abrupt halt. Tony turns slowly towards the direction of the noise (or now lack thereof). Standing, frozen and blinking owlishly was the statue that normally positioned itself in view of all the garden. Tony must really be going insane, surely. Had his sleep deprivation and overuse of caffeine finally gotten so bad that he was having hallucinations of the garden sculptures come to life?

Well, actually, now that he surveyed the area once more—there only seemed to be the one stray wanderer.

“Who... _what?”_ Tony was at a loss for words. It wasn’t every day one had wandering statues about their garden.

“I, uh,” the voice is gravelly, as if the marble crawled its way into the sculptures throat. “I can explain?”

Tony isn’t quite certain as to why he isn’t freaking out as much as he should. “I would sure hope so,” Tony says.

The statue lugs its way over to the empty pedestal, taking a seat. Tony’s eyes are wide with both fright and curiosity. The marble man gives off an air of awkwardness, as much as a sentient statue could exude.

He starts off by stating simply, “I wasn’t always a statue. I was once a living, breathing man, too.”

Tony was dumbfounded. That couldn’t be possible—he was most definitely not leaving it up to magic quite yet. He was a man of science, after all. He wordlessly urges the statue to continue.

“I was... cursed, seventy years ago. To live a life set in stone—literally—until it was broken. To put it simply, that is,” it was odd watching a fluid movement of the statue’s arms. Unnatural.

“Unless, of course, you have the time,” the statue adds. He glances upwards at the sky for a moment, as one might check the time on their watch.

“I have time,” Tony nods. It’s not like he sleeps all that often anyways.

The statue takes a moment to consider his response, before continuing on after finding Tony wasn’t going to keep talking.

“Well,” he sighs. “I was cursed by a man who called himself the Red Skull. My mission had been to put an end to his path of destruction, and in a way, I did exactly that.

“There was this... thing of great power deemed the Tesseract. He was going to harness it and use it to obliterate entire nations. He tried to escape via an aircraft named the Valkyrie. The Tesseract ended up in the ocean, but not before the Red Skull placed a curse on me in his dying moments by the hand of the powerful element. As I... went down into the ocean, kilometres from where the Tesseract had dropped, I could feel my body becoming heavy, as every fibre of my being was transformed into marble. It felt like I was suffocating, but ten times worse.”

Tony, to say the least, was intrigued by this story. Though, parts of it sounded vaguely familiar. _Red Skull, Tesseract, Valkyrie... where had he heard those from before?_

“Your father, Howard, found my statue in the ocean a few years later, and brought me here, to this garden to oversee, I guess. He promised he’d find another way to fix this, but that never ended up happening. I don’t know if it ever will, either. For now, I’m just stuck in the same position for days on end, only gaining mobility from midnight ‘til sunrise on full moons,” the statue looks sad, and rightfully so.

“So your situation is basically a shittier, real life version of Night at the Museum,” Tony says. The statue tilts his head, furrowed eyebrows. Like a dog.

“Night at...”

“The Museum,” Tony finishes. The confused look remains solid, and Tony shakes his head. “Never mind, you wouldn’t... you’ve missed a lot, haven’t you? What do you do on nights like this?”

The statue shrugs. “I usually walk around the gardens. Sometimes I’ll just sit and listen to the night. It gets quite boring after seventy years of it. Though, every other night is much, much worse. At least the idea of freedom comes with movement.”

“Oh,” Tony says quietly. “What’s... what’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’m—my name’s Steve Rogers.”

“Steve Rogers,” Tony tests his tongue, but then—“Wait. Steve Rogers... as in _Captain America_ Steve Rogers?”

Steve’s smile holds an air of sorrow. “Yeah, that’s... me.”

Tony was in disbelief that _this_ was _the_ Captain America, but he decides not to comment, as he’s perceptive to Steve’s tenseness about the subject. Tony had had his fair share of fake, half-hearted smiles to know exactly what they look like on someone else.

“Hey Steve, you said “another” way to fix this? Do you have any clue as to how to rid of whatever curse was put on you the, you know, _original_ way?” Tony is gesticulating wildly.

If a statue could blush, well. Steve was managing to do just that. “I, um. Well I _do,_ but—“

“But what? Is there a catch or something?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, no. There’s no catch or anything. It just... might be a bit... _difficult_ to achieve, putting it lightly.”

“So what is it then?”

“Well, I... actually. Can we push this aside for now? This is the first proper conversation I’ve had in decades. Can we talk about something else?”

Blatant avoidance. Tony couldn’t say he blamed Steve, though. He was well versed in the art as well. It seemed they were turning out to have quite a bit in common.

Tony shrugs. “Sure. Anything in mind?”

Steve bites his lip, appearing pensive. “Could you maybe tell me about the future? Or, the present, I guess. I haven’t much of an idea. It wouldn’t exactly be normal for a meandering statue to have a night out on the town.”

“I suppose not,” Tony huffs out a laugh. Steve smiles, more genuinely this time.

“What’s it like, out there? You have flying cars yet?”

Tony scoffs. “Flying cars—no. Those are not... a thing.”

Their conversation continues late into the night. It consisted of Steve, mostly, asking questions, and Tony giving answers and stories in return. They end up talking for so long that either is unaware of the rising sun in the distance, leaving Steve to have forgotten to return to his original position. He ends up freezing facing Tony with a grin from ear to ear.

Though it had been sort of disturbing watching Steve go rigid mid-talk, it was also fascinating. Not to mention, Tony might have preferred the accidental pose to the regular stance atop the pedestal.

Tony finds himself going back the next night, only to see Steve just as frozen as he was during daytime hours.

“Oh, right,” he had mumbled. “Only every full moon.”

He’d have to wait another month before a proper back-and-forth chat, but for now, he’d settle to speak one-sided. He had said to Steve’s statue, immediately after his realization, “I don’t care if you can hear me or not while you’re stuck like this, but I’m going to talk your ear off anyhow. Maybe I’ll ask you about that next month.”

It went like that for the month in between.

Every instance he could, Tony was on the bench across from Steve, telling him about one of many things—those ranging from his day, to the future, about his company, about his inventions, and so on. And Tony liked to think Steve would have laughed along with him when the statue received a nice shoulder-full of pigeon doo one afternoon.

Even when the next full moon came around, Steve was quite the intent listener. He put up with Tony’s nonsense ramblings, and not reluctantly, either. Oh, and to answer Tony’s question of whether or not he could hear Tony while stiff—he could. He had been able to, always.

 “Steve?”

“Hm?”

“How, um. Is there really a way to reverse your curse or... do you not truthfully know?” Tony asks nervously, at some point. He’s wringing his fingers, posture shy.

Steve sighs. “I suppose it’s probably time I tell you, huh?”

“If you feel too uncomfortable, you don’t—“

“No, no I should,” Steve takes a deep breath. “This is going to sound unbelievably stupid, but... to break the curse, I have to find, um. I have to find true love.”

Tony furrows his brow. “Like a kiss, or...?”

Steve laughs humourlessly, shaking his head. “No—well, not necessarily. Just a requited feeling and... contact of any sort. Mutual love and whatnot,” he throws up a dismissive hand.

“Ah,” Tony says quietly, nodding his head.

That was the thing.

Tony could almost _easily_ say he was in love with Steve by now. Despite having had a mere two nights of returned conversation, he was quick to realize Steve was witty, and charming, and kind-hearted—if not a bit gawky. He had stopped thinking of him as Captain America long ago, and he was thankful he did.

However, he most likely couldn’t say the same about Steve. The statue probably thought he was just plain annoying—he went on a plethora of rants and rambles, never knowing when to shut up. Steve was likely to have just been acting nice, too polite for his own good.

“So, would it matter if I did anyway?” Tony asks timidly.

“If you... what?” Steve says dumbly.

Tony stands and approached hesitantly, not wanting to be too untoward. He doesn’t stop moving forward until they’re face to face, Steve with wide, pupil-less eyes.

He takes the cool, smooth surface of Steve’s face in one hand, leaning in to kiss the statue. It’s strange at first, but that feeling in the back of Tony’s mind melts away as pliant lips become soft and... and _human._

When Tony pulls away, touch lingering on his lips and fingertips, he feels _warm._ He’s greeted with a sight of peach skin, blond hair, and blue, _blue_ eyes. Steve looks just as surprised.

“You...” Steve starts, but then they’re both grinning like maniacs, and kissing the other like a lifeline.

When they finally pull apart, Steve’s face is lit up. “I can’t believe—you finally... wow,” he breathes. This time, he goes in for a hug. It’s tight, but comfortable, and awfully wonderful.

Neither notices when the sun comes up.

At least, not until they realize Steve was free to roam for good.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this concept, i was kind of proud of it.  
> comments, criticism, and kudos are all appreciated! <3


End file.
